Status: Passed Assembly Education Committee on April 9th and then passed Assembly Appropriations Committee on May 28th – To be voted on by the whole Assembly as early as Monday, June 1st and no later than Friday, June 5th.

Quickly pass this alert on to others who might respond and then take the suggested action below.

Summary of Concern:

Under current law, parents can choose to have their child skip kindergarten and begin at the 1st grade. AB 713 would eliminate this current parental choice by mandating that every child attend kindergarten for one school year before they could be admitted to the first grade. This would go into effect at the beginning of the 2017-2018 school year.

AB 713 is an incremental step toward the statist goal of government control over all children from birth. In reference to increasing day care funding, a State Senator revealed another incremental step of this goal that many legislators are working toward when he stated, “What we’re proposing here is to find a way to benefit all children from Day One….” (read article here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article21735990.html ).

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Information Included In This E-mail:

A. Action ItemB. Opposition PointsC. BackgroundD. Summary

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A. Action Item:

CALL Immediately (no later than Tuesday – June 2nd by 4pm) the member of the California State Assembly which represents your district. Please use the following link to find out which Assembly Member is representing your district: http://findyourrep.legislature.ca.gov

After determining who your State Assembly Member is, use the following link to find their Telephone number: http://bit.ly/1F1N5P9 . Scroll down to find your State Assembly Member and call the phone number listed under their name.

Notes:
* Call as a parent and citizen. This bill directly affects all families with young children.
* Emails are a waste of time as they are rarely read in Legislative offices.
* Do not disclose the source of this Alert. All bills are available on the Internet.
* Calls are most effective in this time-limited situation.
* Pass this on to your friends, church, school, and group.
* Pray for a proper outcome.

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B. Opposition Points:

AB 713would damage children. Beginning formal education at age 5 or younger causes unintended harmful consequences to children, some of which last a lifetime. Research* indicates that early formal childhood education not only causes both physical and behavioral long-term problems but that it also does not improve the child’s potential for being a better student later on.

Gains experienced by children who began their formal education at age 5 (or younger) disappear in just a few years.

These same children, however, experience long-lasting adverse effects on their physical, behavioral, and educational development, including life-long vision impairment, and for many, detriments to mathematics and nonacademic readiness skills.

Boys are especially damaged by early entrance (age 5 and younger) into formal education. Boys’ cognitive and verbal skill development significantly lags behind that of girls at this age. As a result, boys do not do as well in the early years, at which time many experience failures leading to frustration, and for some, substance abuse and later criminal behavior.

AB 713would diminish the parental rights of all parents. Under AB 713, parents who choose to delay their child’s entrance into kindergarten would be forced to undergo a time and financial penalty of adding a year of required schooling before graduation. Enrollment into kindergarten prior to the first grade must remain optional for parents.

AB 713would decrease beneficial parental contact with their children. An extra year of development outside of school can be critical for a child at this early age. Carl Zinsmeister, Adjunct Research Associate at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, says, “Declining parental attachment is an extremely serious risk to children today. The verdict of enormous psychological literature is that time spent with the parent is the very clearest correlate of healthy child development.” Parents should continue to have the authority to decide what is best for their children.

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C. BACKGROUND

Under AB 713, parents who would have chosen to delay their child’s entrance into formal education and skip kindergarten, would be forced to choose between either:
(a) starting their child’s formal education one year earlier, before they feel it is best for their child, or
(b) graduating their child a year later than they would under current law.

This is because 13 years of schooling would be required under AB 713 rather than the current 12 years of schooling.

The requirements of AB 713 would apply to all pupils in both public schools and in private schools, including homeschools.

Advocates of extending government control of all children from birth would be able to use passage of AB 713 as an incremental step toward establishing seamless, cradle-to-grave government-controlled education and development programs for all children.

Passage of AB 713 would be followed by the next incremental legislative step — making institutionalized preschool (pre-kindergarten) for every 3 and 4 year-old child universally available to all children and then the next step – making it universally mandatory for every 3 and 4 year-old child.

D.SUMMARY:

* Rushing children into formal education by effectively lowering the age at which children begin formal education by mandating Kindergarten would exact a heavy toll on the development of many children and would weaken the role of parents in their lives. This is diametrically opposed to the message parents are routinely given, that parents need to be more involved in their children’s lives. However, parents cannot be more involved when the state either encourages or requires children to be with their parents for less time. Research supports later rather than earlier entry of children into institutionalized settings for educational development to be the most beneficial.

* AB 713 encroaches on the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing and education of their children. It ignores the long-standing presumption that parents act in the best interest of their children, by requiring parents to enroll their children in Kindergarten rather than allowing them the choice specified in current law. It disregards the parent’s understanding of what would be the best course of action for his own child’s education and development. It is a detrimental one-size-fits-all mandate that would be forced upon all children by the government.

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Permission given to forward this Action Alert unaltered to your friends, church, school, and group.